Pope Benedict XVI has urged hundreds of Anglican bishops attending the Lambeth Conference to find a “mature” way to avoid “schism.”

Nearly a quarter of the Anglican Bishops worldwide – 230 out of the 880 in the Anglican Communion – have shunned the once-a-decade gathering which began today, over disagreements about the Church’s stance on homosexual clergy.

In a message to Dr Rowan Williams, sent from Australia where Benedict XVI is attending World Youth Day, the Pope said: "The words and the message of Christ are what offer the real contribution to Lambeth and only in being faithful to the message ... and God's words can we find a mature way ... to find a road together.”

His words have been interpreted in some quarters as indicating that Pope Benedict will not welcome Anglican traditionalists at odds with the Church of England over women bishops and homosexual clergy into the Catholic Church. Last week, following the General Synod's vote to ordain women bishops, a leading Anglican traditionalist, Bishop Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet said he would consider defecting to the Roman Catholic Church.

In an unprecedented step, Benedict XVI has also sent three Cardinals to the three-week gathering in Canterbury. While it is not the first time a Cardinal has attended – Cardinal Edward Cassidy, then President of the Pontifical Council for Unity came to Lambeth in 1998 – it is the first time that three have been invited.

They include Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and Cardinal Ivan Dias of Bombay, a rising star in Vatican circles invited for his expertise on evangelization, a key theme of the 2008 conference.

Sources within the Roman Catholic Church said their presence merely reflected “the strength” of relations between the two churches.

Earlier this year, on the day that Dr Williams met the Pope, Cardinal Kasper told a meeting in Oxford, that Anglicans needed to “clarify” their identity. He said: “Ultimately, it is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong? Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox - or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions.”